Marco had been working on it for four days before he brought it to Luca.
This was Marco’s method — he did not bring things until they were complete enough to be useful rather than simply alarming. He had the specific discipline of someone who understood that partial information in the wrong moment caused more damage than delayed complete information, and he had spent twenty years applying that discipline in contexts where the stakes were high enough to make it essential.
He came to the third floor office on a Thursday evening, after the rest of the building had wound down and the specific quality of the late evening quiet had settled. He set a file on Luca’s desk and sat across from him and said: “Garrison Merritt is not a real estate developer.”
Luca looked at him.
“He’s a real estate
